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Blair denies covert deal with Bush on Iraq

The World — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:23:20 +0000

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Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has denied striking a “covert” deal to invade Iraq with George W. Bush at a private meeting in 2002 at the President’s ranch in Texas. Blair told the Iraq inquiry in London there was no secret about what was said – that Saddam Hussein had to be dealt with and “the method of doing that is open”. The former prime minister was also quizzed about the claim Saddam could launch weapons at 45 minutes’ notice. He said “it would have been better” if headlines about it had been corrected. Laura Lynch has been watching the inquiry.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World. Tony Blair remains unrepentant nearly seven years after ordering British troops to join the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The former Prime Minister testified for six hours today at an inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq war. Blair stated that knowing what he knows today he would still have gone to war to remove Saddam Hussein. That decision is still deeply unpopular in Britain as some outside the courtroom made clear today. The World’s Laura Lynch reports from London.

LAURA LYNCH: Protesters gathered in the pre-dawn gloom with their verdict. Tony Blair they shouted is a war criminal. Among them was American Jennifer Bromlick. She focused her anger on both Blair and George W. Bush.

JENNIFER BROMLICK: They should do something like this with Bush. I mean, Bush is ultimately answerable for this, for the Iraq war.

LAURA LYNCH: Blair never saw the demonstration. He arrived early going in through a side door. Two hours later he took his seat. Behind him were relatives of British soldiers who had died in Iraq. Well rehearsed in defending an unpopular war, Blair’s hands trembled slightly as he readied himself for this round. Within minutes he was on familiar ground repeating his view that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were reason enough to take a hard look at Saddam Hussein.

TONY BLAIR: That completely changed our assessment of where the risks for security lay. Just so that we make this absolutely clear, this was not an American position. This was my position and the British position. Very, very clearly.

LAURA LYNCH: It’s no surprise Blair wanted to be so clear. He’s long been accused of doing the bidding of George W. Bush in Iraq. Today Blair was asked time and again about the former U.S. President, how he reacted to Blair’s promises, what he expected from Britain. Blair denied any secret deals, but he did tell Bush that he would stand with him.

TONY BLAIR: I think what he took from that was exactly what he should have taken which is that if it came to military action because there was no way of dealing with this diplomatically, we would be with him. That was absolutely clear because as I had set out publicly, not privately, we had to confront this issue. It could be confronted by sanctions, framework that’s effective. For the reasons I’ve given we didn’t have one. It could be confronted by U.N. inspections framework, we’ll come to that. Or, alternatively, it would have to be confronted by force. I was going earlier, but I won’t do it, but I’m very happy to make available.

LAURA LYNCH: The questioning wore on about whether Blair exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam and about whether he had a strong legal case to go to war without explicit U.N. support. Blair stood firm. He made the right decision, he said, for the right reasons.

TONY BLAIR: As I sometimes say to people, this isn’t about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception, it’s a decision. The decision I had to take was given Saddam’s history, given his use of chemical weapons; given the over one million people whose deaths he caused, given ten years of breaking U.N. resolutions, could we take the risk?

LAURA LYNCH: Blair tried to deflect several questions by focusing on the Iraq of today. Iraqi’s he said, are better off now than they were in 2003. That prompted inquiry commissioner Lawrence Friedman to recite what he called tragic statistics, Iraqi’s who have died in recent years.

LAWRENCE FRIEDMAN: 1,042 in January 2005; 1,433 in January 2006; 2,807 in January 2007; these are monthly figures. These are the documented deaths. They are not the, goodness knows how many undocumented – - the deaths from the deterioration in services, poverty, poor health and so on. The striking is they are getting worse each year.

LAURA LYNCH: In the final minutes Blair said he was sorry for the deep divisions the Iraq war caused in Britain, but that seemed to be about as far as he would go with apologies to the evident frustration of those sitting just feet away.

TONY BLAIR: I’ve no regrets. Responsibility, but not a regret for removing Saddam Hussein. I think he was a monster. I believed he threatened not just the region, but the world. His defense complete, Blair left quickly. His bodyguards close behind. The families, too, made their way outside. Many like Reg Keys, upset by what they had just seen and heard.

REG KEYS: He had an opportunity there to apply some soothing balm to some of the open wounds of grief that are in that room. I saw a couple of mothers in there break down at the end in tears because the man, all he had to say was to assuage the grief was I do regret the loss of life, but he’s quite remorseless, no regret at all.

LAURA LYNCH: No one really expected Blair to back down, to admit mistakes or reconsider. Today he said he would do it all again in the name of making Britain safer. But in the same week British officials raised the country’s threat level to severe, many still believe Blair sent his troops into an illegal war with questionable results. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch in London.

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Britain’s inquiry into the Iraq war

The World — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:20:48 +0000

The British government’s former top lawyer has said he initially believed a second United Nations resolution was necessary to justify invading Iraq in 2003, but later changed his mind a month before the war. Critics of the war have long suspected that former Attorney General Peter Goldsmith was pressured to change his mind by then Prime Minister Tony Blair (pictured). Blair is expected to testify before the inquiry on Friday. Laura Lynch reports. Download MP3

MARCO WERMAN: Britain’s investigation into it’s involvement in the war in Iraq is heating up. In two days former British Prime Minister Tony Blair faces a public grilling at the Iraq inquiry. And today, there was new evidence suggesting Washington played a key role in convincing Blair’s government that the Iraq invasion was legal. The World’s Laura Lynch reports.

LAURA LYNCH: It’s the question that goes to the heart of the inquiry; was the 2003 invasion of Iraq illegal? A Dutch inquiry concluded two weeks that it was. But it’s still a matter of intense debate here in Britain. Yesterday the Foreign Office’s two top lawyers at the time of the invasion were unequivocal in their testimony. They said the invasion wasn’t legal without explicit UN support. Elizabeth Wilmshurst told the inquiry her Minister, Jack Straw, simply swept aside that advice.

ELIZABETH WILMHURST: Well, it’s rather uncomfortable when the Secretary of State of the Department doesn’t agree with the legal advice given to him or her. So in that sense it was a challenge.

MALE VOICE 1: Was it unusual in your experience?

ELIZABETH WILMHURST: Yes.

MALE VOICE 2: Did it make a difference that Jack Straw is himself a qualified lawyer?

ELIZABETH WILMHURST: He is not an international lawyer.

LAURA LYNCH: The uncomfortable laughter was a nod to the tensions simmering throughout government in the months before the war. Tensions that lead to sharp disagreements among ministers. Today Tony Blair’s Attorney General took his turn on the stand. Lord Peter Goldsmith said he, too, got a cool reception when he tried to warn Blair the summer before the invasion not to rush into anything with George W. Bush.

LORD PETER GOLDSMITH: I knew that the Prime Minister was going to see President Bush. I knew that one of the topics of conversation, at least, was going to be the Iraq issue because that was obviously very much on the international agenda at that stage. And I didn’t want there to be any doubt that in my view the Prime Minister could not have the view that he could agree with President Bush somehow, well let’s go without going back to the United Nations. I wasn’t asked for it. I don’t, frankly, think it was terribly welcome.

LAURA LYNCH: Goldsmith didn’t waiver in his view until February of 2003, just weeks before the troops rolled into Iraq. For the first time today, Goldsmith admitted it was a trip to the United States that changed his mind. He visited the White House, met with attorneys and Condoleeza Rice among others. Goldsmith came back and gave Blair the go ahead.

LORD PETER GOLDSMITH: I was of the view that a reasonable case could be made. I’m sorry, there was a reasonable case that a second resolution was not necessary and that that was on past precedence, sufficient to constitute a green light.

LAURA LYNCH: Watching all this today was Clare Short. She was in Blair’s cabinet at the time, but resigned over the decision to invade. She finds Goldsmith’s conversion on the road back from the White House troubling.

CLARE SHORT: And to say he was influenced by the Americans, we know that the Bush administration had no respect of any kind for the UN or for international law, didn’t think there was any need to go to the Security Council, did so because Britain couldn’t do it without that. So to say that American opinion influenced him is really not impressive.

LAURA LYNCH: Short herself will testify at the inquiry in the coming weeks, but not before the former Prime Minister himself on Friday. Tony Blair’s appearance is almost certain to generate protest outside and inside the hearing room. Relatives of soldiers who died in Iraq will be sitting just feet away from Blair as he testifies. For many of them, Blair was far too ready to follow Washington’s lead into a war they still believe wasn’t justified. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch in London.

Entire program – November 26, 2009

The World — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:50:06 +0000

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Today on The World: A British inquiry into the Iraq War reveals more about what George Bush and Tony Blair discussed before the invasion; why trouble for the global economy is good news for the world of romance novels, and we find out what can be heard at the International Body Music Festival.

British inquiry into Iraq war continues

The World — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:45:45 +0000

Tony Blair’s view on regime change in Iraq “tightened” after a private meeting of the British Prime Minister with President George W. Bush in 2002, the UK’s former ambassador to the United States has testified. Sir Christopher Meyer said no officials were at the Bush family ranch talks – but the next day Blair mentioned regime change for the first time. He also said officials had been left “scrambling” for evidence of WMD while the US prepared its troops for an invasion. The World’s Laura Lynch continues her coverage of the UK inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Download MP3

MARCO WERMAN: This is the World. I’m Marco Werman. Americans still have questions about the decision to go to war in Iraq. Some wonder what intelligence the Bush Administration had on the regime in Baghdad and whether it was entirely truthful in what it told the public about that information. Still, there have been no high level government investigations of the process. There have been in Britain though, including one that started this week. Today’s star witness was Christopher Meyer, Britain’s Ambassador to the United States at the time. The World’s Laura Lynch reports from London.

LAURA LYNCH: In often colorful language, Meyer revisited the dramatic days between September 11, 2001 and the March, 2003 invasion of Iraq. He told the inquiry former Prime Minister Tony Blair set the tone. Within hours of the attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, he vowed to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States. Working the diplomatic circuit in the U.S. capitol, Meyer noticed an immediate impact.

CHRISTOPHER MEYER: To be Ambassador to the United States of America was, make no bones about it, a heady and exhilarating experience because wherever you went, people would rise to their feet and give you a storming round of applause. So you had to be careful not to be swept away by this stuff.

LYNCH: Meyer was as close to the center of power in Washington as any foreign diplomat could be. On the evening of September 11, he says he spoke to George W. Bush’s national security advisor, Condoleeza Rice. Until that day, Iraq was low on the list of priorities for the White House. But he says Rice’s comments showed the attacks had moved it and Saddam Hussein all the way up to the top.

MEYER: And she said well there’s no doubt this has been an Al Quaida operation but at the end of the conversation, as we’re just looking to see whether there could possibly be any connection to Saddam Hussein. And that was the very first time, on the day itself, that I heard the name of the Iraqi leader mentioned in the context of 9/11.

LYNCH: Other British officials testified yesterday they weren’t convinced of any link but Bush and Blair were developing a close working relationship and Meyer says that he began to sense a change after Blair visited Bush at his ranch in Texas in April of 2002.

MEYER: The two men were alone in the ranch until dinner on Saturday night where all the advisors, including myself, turned up. So I’m not entirely clear, to this day, I know what the cabinet often says for what were the results of the meeting but to this day, I’m not entirely clear what degree of convergence was, if you like, signed in blood at the Crawford Ranch.

LYNCH: The next day the former ambassador noticed that Blair spoke about regime change for the first time, in a key foreign policy speech that touched on terrorism and the situation in Iraq.

TONY BLAIR: If necessary, the action should be military and again if necessary and justified, it should involve regime change.

LYNCH: From then on, Meyer says the UK/US alliance was tighter and the march to war seemed inevitable. In fact, he told the inquiry that the military timetable meant there wasn’t enough time to do a proper hunt for evidence of any stockpile of chemical or biological weapons.

MEYER: We found ourselves scrambling for the smoking gun, which is another way of saying it’s not like Saddam now has to prove he’s innocent. We’ve now bloody well got to try and prove he’s guilty.

LYNCH: Meyer’s ringside seat in Washington gave him what he believes was a pretty good view of the in-fighting in the Bush Administration. But over time, the drum beats of war grew ever louder and he criticizes his own government, saying Britain didn’t push the White House nearly enough to draw up post-invasion plans. He says it was like a black hole. Meyer recalled sitting with then-Vice President, Dick Cheney, on the day the British Parliament was debating whether to support the invasion. Meyer says he tried to explain to Cheney the political difficulties Blair was facing.

MEYER: And his reaction was quite dismissive. Well, you know, once you get by your political problem and we get to Baghdad, then we’ll be greeted with cheers and flowers or whatever by the population and all this will be history.

LYNCH: Blair himself isn’t saying anything about the revelations that have come out at the inquiry in the first three days. But one of his closest allies in the cabinet back then, Lord Charles Falconer, is defending Blair. He says there’s no chance he made a pact with Bush to remove Saddam as early as the spring of 2002.

LORD CHARLES FALCONER: No, I didn’t and that’s right. And I think the evidence that Christopher Meyer gave this morning made it clear that one of the things that the British government and Tony Blair had been influential in doing was ensuring that America did go down the United Nations route and indeed as a result of today’s persuasion, on the fourteenth of September, 2002, President Bush made a very impressive speech to the UN, making it clear that he was looking to the UN to deal with the issue. So I think far from it being fixed in advance, it was clear the matter was to be decided by the UN.

LYNCH: Tony Blair paid a heavy price back home for his support of both Bush and the war. In three days of hearings, Blair’s decisions back then have come under fresh scrutiny, guaranteeing he’ll have much to answer to when he testifies early next year. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch in London.

Interview with Pervez Musharraf

The World — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:22:20 +0000

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The former president of Pakistan was America’s ally in fighting Muslim extremism. Many in Washington said he did too little. Many Pakistanis said he bowed to western pressure. Now, as Pakistani troops battle militants along the Afghan border, he talks with Marco Werman about the delicate balance of leading Pakistan. (Photo: Catherine Murphy)

Web extra: Marco asked Musharraf about his stay in the US:
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Musharraf profile
Musharraf’s facebook page

MARCO WERMAN: Afghanistan’s neighbor, Pakistan, is in the middle of a major military offensive against the Taliban. The Pakistani army is trying to take control of the militant stronghold of South Waziristan along the Afghan border. Army officials say 16 soldiers have died so far while more than 100 militants have been killed. Pakistan’s former president, General Pervez Musharraf is visiting the US right now and came to our studio. I asked him if the offensive in South Waziristan is the solution to Pakistan’s problems with the Taliban.

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: It’s not the solution but it’s one part of the solution. I’ve always said that solution lies in a triple directional strategy – military, political, and socio-economic. So the military part is being executed well after having dealt with Swat and [INDISCERNIBLE] they’ve now gone to South Waziristan. So I think it’s good – the using of concentrated force in a peace [INDISCERNIBLE] objective.

WERMAN: And do you think the operation Swat was effective?

MUSHARRAF: Yes I think it was successful.

WERMAN: But recently there were 40 killed in a suicide attack and so it raises the issue, it’s one thing to take a region; it’s another thing to hold it.

MUSHARRAF: Well even if you hold it that doesn’t mean that you can guarantee that no suicide attack will take place. I know that the law enforcement agency, the army’s opening a [INDISCERNIBLE] there. It will be there. So it will be held. But that doesn’t mean that no bullet will be fired by any terrorist. Because if a person is there to carry out a suicide attack it’s really very difficult to avoid it.

WERMAN: There’s been a slow steady drumbeat of Afghan officials along with NATO accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to stem the movement of militants sympathetic to al-Qaeda and the Taliban across the border into Afghanistan. Why has this offensive in South Waziristan taken so long and why didn’t you engage in an equally forceful offensive in the same area?

MUSHARRAF: It was I who moved the two divisions in North and South Waziristan back and I think immediately up to [INDISCERNIBLE]. Who has been catching all these al-Qaeda people? Who did that? It was in my time. Hundreds of them have been caught. So how do you say that we hadn’t operated? They are there since long and they have been operating there.

WERMAN: So why, again, why the need for another offensive? Why this upsurge in violence?

MUSHARRAF: Yeah it’s because all these eight years there has been an upsurge of Taliban activity. A Taliban who were finished after 9/11. They had an upsurge in Afghanistan. [PH] Mula Omar and all his [INDISCERNIBLE] are reestablished in Afghanistan in the same region from where they dominated or they controlled 90 percent of Afghanistan. So after 2004 – 05 there was an upsurge. We saw the downward trend in al-Qaeda because of Pakistan’s actions and an upward trend, swing, in the Taliban support. And therefore now the situation is al-Qaeda is down. Who did this? Obviously Pakistan forces operating in Pakistan, in [INDISCERNIBLE] and mountains. But the Taliban upsurge has come about in Afghanistan and that has a great impact in Pakistan because there are now Pakistani Taliban in South and North Waziristan much stronger links with across the border and they are acting. So this is now a different ballgame all together.

WERMAN: Now as a former military leader – I mean you were a military leader who came to power in a coup. You stepped down as head of the army in 2007. You recognized at the time the merit of a civilian government in Pakistan. Now in Afghanistan yesterday a runoff election was announced to take place on November 7^th. What is at stake for Pakistan with this vote in Afghanistan?

MUSHARRAF: Well I don’t think it directly affects Pakistan.

WERMAN: You don’t?

MUSHARRAF: It does affect Afghanistan.

WERMAN: But what affects Afghanistan, affects Pakistan ultimately.

MUSHARRAF: Well yes indirectly, indirectly. I think one would require if we are to win in Afghanistan we have to have a credible, legitimate government in Afghanistan. And that is not the case. But Pakistan’s interest is in a legitimate, acceptable government to all the ethnic minorities of Afghanistan for the sake of Afghanistan because if we can have better peace in Afghanistan it will be of advantage to Pakistan certainly.

WERMAN: You’ve been quite critical of President Hamid Karzai. What happens, in your opinion, to the region if he is president again? If he wins this runoff election.

MUSHARRAF: Well I think I’ve been critical, yes, because of certain observations that I had in his criticizing Pakistan, in his supporting elements who are instrumental in carrying out terrorism in Baltistan. So there are certain things that I disagree with him. These were my observations and my accusations against him. So I used to criticize him on that. The other thing is that he used to throw the entire blame on Pakistan – that whatever is happening in Afghanistan is because of Pakistan. And I think the world must understand that this is absolutely the opposite. Whatever is happening in Pakistan is because of Afghanistan. The same [INDISCERNIBLE], the same Taliban, resurgence of that force in Afghanistan.

WERMAN: But in fact it’s very hard to say where these militants are coming from. They could be coming form Pakistan as well as Afghansitan. So both countries are in fact … .

MUSHARRAF: No they are coming … . No actually there’s no doubt at all. Absolutely. I have no doubt at all. Taliban under [INDISCERNIBLE] control 90% of Afghanistan. There is support to them in Pakistan. There are safe havens in Pakistan. And there are Taliban elements of Pakistan also. But if anyone thinks that they are all coming from Pakistan this is what the misperception that exists in Untied States and this misperception is fanned by people like President Karzai unfortunately. And this is misleading the world.

WERMAN: Pervez Musharraf, former president of Pakistan. Thank you very much for your time.

MUSHARRAF: Thank you.

WERMAN: Hear more about Pervez Musharraf’s current US visit and about his plans for a return to Pakistan at our website. You’ll also find a link to the former Pakistani leader’s newly launched Facebook page. It’s all at The World dot org.

Cheney’s involvement in interrogation abuse

The World — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:07:08 +0000

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Anchor Katy Clark speaks with John Nichols, author of an unofficial biography of former Vice President Dick Cheney, about allegations of Cheney’s role in authorizing the CIA interrogation techniques now under investigation.

KATY CLARK: Many of the questions surrounding the use of enhanced interrogation techniques lead back to former Vice President Dick Cheney. John Nichols is the author of an unofficial Cheney biography. He’s also Washington correspondent of the magazine, The Nation. John Nichols what do you believe Cheney’s role was in authorizing or pushing these techniques?

JOHN NICHOLS: Well, there’s very little doubt at this point that Vice President Cheney, when he was in office, was a passionate advocate for an aggressive approach to gathering intelligence and he himself has said that he encouraged the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, which is of course the euphemism used by members of the administration, or what an awful lot of people call torture. So, I think it would be almost comic at this point to suggest that he was anything but a driving force in initiating discussions about using enhanced interrogation. Promoting the authorization of that enhanced interrogation by the Whitehouse and by legal counselors, and finally making sure that it was implemented, encouraging the CIA to do so. So, I think it would be fair to say he was the central figure.

CLARK: As we hear more learn and learn more about these techniques they seem to have taken place as a result of the slow considered steps of a very vast bureaucracy. How fair is it to say that all roads lead back to Dick Cheney?

NICHOLS: Of course we have to be careful about assuming that he hatched every plan, came up with every plot. We don’t need to make him ino the ultimate Machiavelli. What we do need to find out is the extent to which he was actively engaged at many, many different levels of

bureaucratic and legislative, official and unofficial in promoting the use of what most people in the world would describe as torture.

CLARK: Mr. Cheney has been pretty vocal in defending the Bush administration’s record using enhanced interrogation techniques saying that they delivered intelligence success. How do you argue with that?

NICHOLS: Well, it’s always very, very important to look at Dick Cheney’s statements. He is a master communicator of ideas that he wants to get across, but that are carefully plotted so that he doesn’t necessarily have to take responsibility. And if you look at some of his recent statements about the successes of enhanced interrogation, they’re a little bit vague in the area of whether it was the enhanced interrogation that actually got the intelligence that people are talking about, and this is very, very important. There is no question that some people on whom enhanced interrogation techniques were practiced did provide intelligence that may have been quite useful to the United States, but neither Cheney nor anyone else that I’ve seen so far, has successfully made a clear linkage between the water boarding, the enhanced interrogation, the torture, and the accessing of that information.

CLARK: Would that be some of the information that would come out in an investigation. I mean do you think that would be more of what we would find out?

NICHOLS: Well, of course that’s what we want to find out. And the important thing about this discussion is that we have two roles. One, in an investigation let’s find out what the United States did. Were lines crossed, why were they crossed, how were they crossed, what was done that was irresponsible, wrong-headed, potentially illegal?. And then once you’ve discovered that the much more important question becomes, who made this the case. Those who promoted those actions are the ones who need to be held to account, and yet it’s very, very silly frankly to fret about the CIA operatives at the low level. If somebody did something that is grossly illegal, of course they should be held to account, but really what we want to know, who was telling that low level officer what to do, and again there’s an awfully lot of evidence that suggests that Dick Cheney or at least people around Dick Cheney had some role in that telling.

CLARK: Given how much Dick Cheney has really been out there speaking about things that the Bush administration did, do you get a sense that perhaps in some way he is setting himself up as the fall guy here.

NICHOLS: No, I don’t think he’s setting himself as the fall guy. I think there’s another strategy altogether and that is to win the public relations war, i.e. to keep pushing the idea that the use of these techniques gained intelligence that protected America, to fight, if you will, above the level of the investigation so that even if an inquiry ultimately does point fingers of blame at Dick Cheney, the average American may not view him as an evil player. They might view him as perhaps and overzealous defender of the safety and good of the nation.

CLARK: John Nichols is Washington correspondent of The Nation and author of Dick, the Man Who is President. Thanks.

NICHOLS: It’s a pleasure.

Keeping secrets from Congress

The World — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:20:14 +0000

This weekend, the New York Times broke the story that the Bush administration had a secret counter-terrorism program started after the 9/11 attacks and that Vice President Cheney directed the CIA to keep it from Congress. The World’s Jason Margolis reports on the legal ramifications. Listen

JEB SHARP: In the months before the US invaded Afghanistan, the Bush Administration reportedly started a top-secret counter-terrorism program. As the New York Times reported this weekend, Vice President Dick Cheney directed the CIA to hide it from Congress. And it apparently did so for eight years until current CIA director Leon Panetta found out about it and closed it down. Right now, Congressional members are sounding off about the secret program, though no one is providing much in the way of specifics. The World’s Jason Margolis reports.

JASON MARGOLIS: The details are still murky and slowly unfolding, but a new piece of information was added today. The Wall Street Journal reported that the secret CIA program was to capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives. The Journal reports that the precise nature of the CIA’s highly classified effort remains unclear. It also says the program never became fully operational. But from the point of view of Congressional Democrats, that doesn’t matter.

DARRELL WEST: It is the act of having misled members of Congress.

JASON MARGOLIS: That’s Darrell West, the director of governance studies at the Brookings Intuition.

DARRELL WEST: I mean, the issue is whether Cheney encouraged people at the CIA to mislead Congress. If that actually did take place, those are very serious charges, and the vice president could be subject to legal jeopardy.

JASON MARGOLIS: If Cheney ordered the CIA to withhold intelligence to Congress, that is a clear violation of the law, says Mark Ellis with the International Bar Association.

MARK ELLIS: You look at the National Security Act; it expressly states that it’s the responsibility, in this case for the CIA, to provide this national intelligence. If you were in any way trying to avoid providing this information or misleading Congress, what the CIA would be doing would be directly violating its responsibility.

JASON MARGOLIS: The decision whether to investigate lies in the hands of US attorney general Eric Holder. Holder is reportedly already considering opening an investigation into possible CIA torture during interrogations.

ERIC HOLDER: He really does hold now the power to independently decide whether a special prosecutor will be appointed. And if that’s the case then this will move to a very different environment, because then you are talking about legal parameters brought in and holding individuals accountable.

JASON MARGOLIS: President Obama has said the nation should be looking forward, not backward. Darrell West at Brookings says a potential investigation puts President Obama in a tough situation.

DARRELL WEST: Because he has promised reconciliation and bringing people together, and if there is an investigation into Vice President Cheney, it inherently is going to be very divisive and seen in partisan terms.

JASON MARGOLIS: That already seems to be happening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The executive branch of government cannot create programs like these programs and keep Congress in the dark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE 2: I believe that Vice President Cheney served his country with as much fidelity as he could possibly give to it.

JASON MARGOLIS: On the Sunday morning political shows, senators like Democrat Dick Durbin and Republican Jeff Sessions took their respective party lines. If the attorney general chooses not to investigate, Congressional Democrats are talking about taking matters into their own hands, establishing a so-called Truth Commission. Republicans and the Obama Administration have not supported the idea. For the World, I’m Jason Margolis.